Pirates’ bullpen game plan exposes a bigger problem than their fading playoff hopes

The Pittsburgh Pirates can keep saying they are trying to win every remaining game, but their rotation plan is starting to tell a different story.

With Mitch Keller and Braxton Ashcraft on the injured list, Pittsburgh is prepared to use bullpen games for two of its five rotation spots down the stretch. General manager Ben Cherington defended that approach Sunday on his radio show, arguing that it gives the Pirates their best chance to win while also accounting for workload concerns this late in the season.

Maybe it does. But the fact that the Pirates need to attack September this way at all is the bigger issue.

If Pittsburgh were sitting one or two games out of a Wild Card spot, relying on bullpen games for 40% of the rotation would feel like an emergency. Instead, the Pirates entered Monday at 75-75, 6.5 games behind San Diego for the final National League Wild Card spot with only 12 games remaining and an elimination number of six. The postseason race is essentially over.

Now the Pirates can afford to frame this as workload management. They can use Wilber Dotel, Carmen Mlodzinski, Khristian Curtis and Antwone Kelly as bulk options, mix and match around them and avoid forcing pitchers into traditional starting roles for which they are not fully built out.

That might be sensible for the final two weeks. It should not, however, be mistaken for a satisfactory solution.

Ben Cherington’s bullpen game plan is an admission Pirates are already looking toward 2027

Keller’s season-ending injury and Ashcraft’s late-season arm issue have exposed how quickly Pittsburgh’s rotation depth evaporates once two established starters disappear. For an organization that has spent years selling pitching depth as one of the strengths of its rebuild, needing two bullpen games every five days is difficult to ignore.

Dotel, Curtis and Kelly all have value. September innings could help determine whether any of them can occupy meaningful roles in 2027. But there is a difference between evaluating young bulk relievers and actually having dependable major-league starting depth.

Pittsburgh cannot enter 2027 simply assuming Keller will return healthy, Ashcraft will absorb another full workload, Paul Skenes and Bubba Chandler will make every start and nobody else will go down. Rotation attrition is inevitable. A contender needs legitimate sixth, seventh and eighth starting options — not merely enough relievers to cobble together 27 outs when injuries arrive.

Cherington is right about one thing: bullpen games do not automatically mean losses. But using them twice every turn through the rotation says plenty about the state of the roster.

A September that was supposed to determine whether the Pirates were ready for October has instead exposed another hole they need to address before they can seriously expect to get there.

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